


Assimilation

by thesignsofserbia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen, John is good friend, M/M, Not Season/Series 03 Compliant, PTSD Sherlock, Post-Reichenbach, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sherlock Holmes Returns after Reichenbach, Sherlock struggling to assimilate, Sherlock-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 04:48:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4863716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesignsofserbia/pseuds/thesignsofserbia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He’d never thought that being home would be difficult, life as he knew it before had been easy in comparison, and he’d expected that it would be again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Assimilation

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry about the slow start, and yes I am physically incapable of writing something that isn't post-reichenbach, I'm starting to feel like I'm describing Kuzco's poison.

 

  
Sherlock was having a nap. The longest nap ever attempted by a human. It was world record holding level stuff; a nap marathon.

  
Sherlock often had days where he didn’t get out of bed, but this was getting a bit ridiculous. So John wades through the ‘toxic waste dump’ that is Sherlock’s bedroom, fully intending to prod him back into reality, hopefully before his muscles atrophy and he becomes permanently welded to that posh mattress.

  
“Are you planning on getting up any time this year?”

  
It’s dark in the room, and John’s always thought that closed curtains during the day never fail make everything seem exceptionally gloomier, but looking at Sherlock now, he thinks that’s probably the point.

  
If the room is gloomy, then that can be used to justify the gloom inside his head. He thinks that must be why some people hurt themselves, they’re in pain and they need that pain to be tangible, for there to be a reason for it.

  
Sherlock is awake, and he hasn’t been sleeping at all, but it takes some time for him to sluggishly register the sound, recognise it as John’s voice, process the audio frequencies and formulate a response.

  
“I can’t,” he states matter or factly, but his voice is so _heavy_ ; cue the alarm bells to start ringing in John’s head.

  
Sherlock is listless, and mostly unresponsive, but John knows he can hear him perfectly, and is physically _capable_ of getting up, so…

  
“Why are you doing this?” John probes gently, concerned.

  
“It’s not really my choice,” Sherlock eventually sighs, and he should be irritated; but he just sounds weary.

  
Oh, not this again; the black moods, John hates them, he hates them so much, because there’s nothing he can do.

  
He can’t predict them either, but this one _could_ have been brought on by sleep deprivation, it feels like the man hasn’t slept in an eternity, he can’t even remember the last time Sherlock looked well-rested.

  
It’s no wonder why he isn’t functioning properly.

  
“It worries me, you shutting yourself in here on your own,” John bites his lip.

  
It upsets him especially when he knows Sherlock is awake and just doing _nothing_.

  
“I know.”

  
It’s not an apology, not that John would ever ask for one, he knows Sherlock can’t help this; it’s completely out of both of their control.

  
It’s hard for him to see Sherlock; beaten by his own mind, and Sherlock knows that, it’s not that he _doesn’t_ care, it’s that he can’t summon it in himself to express that care, he hasn’t the capacity to cater to John right now, or to himself for that matter, he’s just…stuck.

  
“Okay, I’m going to stay then, see you through it, yeah?”

  
“S’not that simple; won’t just go away because you’re here.”

  
“This has happened before, remember? We just have to wait it out, it will pass; eventually.”

  
“It won’t.”

  
John has no response to that, so he sits up against the headboard, book on the night stand, it’s too dark to read.

  
But it would be unfair to open the curtains, because for whatever reason Sherlock needs these conditions and it would be counterproductive to change them, he’s not sure how, it just would, and he’s supposed to be helping.

  
John stares into the half light, and frets.

  
~

  
The weight of what he was feeling made it impossible to get up, he simply could.not.do.it, do _anything_.

  
Just keeping his eyes open was an effort, every time he tried he only found that they had closed again of their own accord just seconds later, so he couldn’t be bothered. It should be hateful, but he can’t even bring himself to be concerned about it.

  
He just wants to lie here and never get up, and he can’t do anything _else,_ he’s tried, he can’t fight it, so what was the point in trying? He gives up.

  
John is right, he knows that in a few days he will recover, and be able to face living in the world once more.

  
He knows that it’s true, he just doesn’t believe it.

  
It is as though there is a typing error in the equation, you know exactly what’s _supposed_ to happen, but it isn’t working, the reactants refusing to produce the correct chemicals.

  
So in your desperation after hours of fruitless attempts, you begin to doubt that the predicted result is right in the first place, could the mistake be there?

  
Not having spotted the error, you choose believe what you can see before you instead, because the other options appear to be flawed.

  
He knows that he _can_ recover, but will he? Precedence says yes, but the evidence in front of him says otherwise.

  
It would be a lot easier if he wasn’t awake, he might be able to sleep it off. He’s too tired to be awake, but the doors of sleep are barred to him, so he drifts.

  
“Is there something I can do?”

  
John’s voice floats down to him from very far away, like it’s trickling through the soup in his brain before it reaches him. He is anxious to help, can’t be content to sit in the dark without being useful. Good, loyal John Watson.

  
“I don’t know.”

  
He hasn’t the strength to think about it, to search for possibilities. His brain is operating on emergency power; only essential systems running.

  
A critical error has occurred; all higher functions not responding, autopilot mode engaged.

  
John is speaking, babbling well-meaning words in a muffled drone, he’s forgotten to listen, and he has to force himself to tune back into it.

  
“This could be brought on by sleep deprivation. You _have_ to sleep Sherlock, it’s been weeks. What do you need, what’s going to get you to sleep?”

  
“I need to be safe.” The words come out of their own accord, without him mentally forming them, and it’s his voice, but it doesn’t sound like him.

  
The words are true, but he hadn’t thought of it that way until now, hadn't realised that that may be part of the problem.

  
John’s concerned silence is heavy but its importance cannot quite reach him.

  
He’s safe enough, according to the equation. All of the right elements are there for him to be safe, but his brain says he’s not, and so he doesn’t sleep.

  
Knowing this doesn’t help anything.

  
In began almost immediately after he got back, he now finds many tasks to be significantly more taxing than they should be.

  
He returned to find that he no longer belongs in society; that this wasn’t what he knew anymore.

  
His return to civilisation was disjointed; consulting cases, day to day conversation, technology; all the luxuries of the modern world suddenly being right there at his fingertips when they had been absent in so long.

  
These things weren’t part of his job description anymore.

  
He likes to think of himself as an adaptable person, but still, it was a culture shock and apparently he is not immune to such things.

  
He has a different profession, and he had become reluctantly accustomed to it, his place now was on the streets, in the shadows, he was a mirage; fleeting and deceitful.

  
He’d never thought that being home would be difficult, life as he knew it before had been easy in comparison, and he’d expected that it would be again. As it turns out, in practice, things are not so simple, he's been away for too long.

  
Not having to constantly watch his back should be a relief, the days of not being able to pause for breath, running himself into the ground were gone, and he was glad to be rid of them. He should feel unburdened.

  
He doesn’t feel any better at all, just different; alien.

  
Such intensive and strenuous activity, maintained at a constant level, for practically every waking moment of two years, this had all accumulated, so that towards the end, he’d been ready to drop.

  
So he couldn’t claim to have been surprised that they’d caught him, someone had been bound to, it had just been a matter of _when_ , and he’d gotten admirably far, managing to elude capture.

  
In the end though, none of his hard work mattered, he’d made it almost easy for them, his exhaustion levels too high to ignore, the fatigue weakening him, mind and body.

  
One lapse. In two years, but that was all it took.

  
He tried not to think about it, and that concentrated denial alone consumed too much of his already-depleted energy supply.

  
_Not_ thinking about so many things simultaneously, whilst also trying to focus on the present, and functioning like a human being made him feel like he was running in circles, fruitlessly jumping through hoops, pointlessly wearing himself down.

  
And yet it could not be avoided, he couldn’t stop for breath, or everything he’s running from will catch up to him, and when it does…

  
Adapting to not worrying about being shot in the head from great distance every time he was out in the open was proving to be less easy than one would think.

  
You can’t simply say ‘ _it’s no longer a concern, so you don’t have to think about it,’_ and be done with it, because that didn’t mean you wouldn’t still do so automatically.

  
He was no longer sure how to respond to someone nagging him about cleaning the shower, because lives were in danger, and surely that was more important? And then he’d remember, no one’s life was on the line, and he hadn’t a clue what to do with that information.

  
His role now was null and void.

  
He thinks he understand now, what life was like for John when he returned from Afghanistan, he was still a soldier, but there was no war for him to fight, and he was left feeling foreign and obsolete.

  
He was stationary despite everything, and no movement seemed to be able to shift him, but…he was still so _tired_.

  
The combined forces of everything he is _not_ thinking about was dangling precariously above his head, and his muscles are weakening from keeping it at bay.

  
He feels like he’s slipped beneath the surface of the ocean, and now he has the added weight of the water pressing down upon him.

  
He’s sinking deeper exponentially, and for every 10 meters he falls, the pressure increases by one atmosphere.

  
His cells are shrieking and groaning, because where their outward forces are usually equal to the gaseous atmosphere of the surface, they are no match for the barometric forces currently holding them in a vice.

  
The human body has adapted to operate under the pressure of one atmosphere, and the ambient hyperbaric pressure changes are testing the limits his physiology can tolerate.

  
He’s not a machine, he’s human, he’s weak, he’s fallible; he’s flesh and bone, and as a consequence of that, there is only so much force he can sensibly endure.

  
His internal barometer is overloading, it’s going to explode.

  
The force of the water is crushing him. The water’s not there, and it doesn’t tangibly exist, but it’s still killing him.

  
How would he even _begin_ to try and explain all this to John?

  
‘Oh yes, I have to fight not to vomit every time I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, because I’ve been so busy _not_ thinking about how I got them, that I’m no longer ready to face the proofs of my ordeal, the reality I am so desperate to avoid. It’s carved into my skin you see, so I can’t escape it, I’m one walking, talking, _grotesque_ canvas.’

  
‘Sorry I lock the flat door, even when I’m home. I know we never used to do that, but I’ve become more security conscious. I think it started around the 6 th time I had to make a last-minute exit out the window from accommodation that I’d previously thought to be secure, because someone had come to kill me in my sleep. There were international assassins lining up to hunt me down you see, they didn’t even know who I _was_ and they wanted me dead. It’s difficult to forget that sort of thing.’

  
‘Sorry I’m visibly uneasy every time you stand directly in front of the windows, it’s because you’re in the line of fire, and I keep expecting to see that little red dot, dancing between your eyes. It’s not that I’m ignoring you, and it wasn’t something you said, I promise; I wasn’t even listening, because I’m bracing to tackle you to the floor at a moment’s notice.’

  
‘Yes I _am_ that paranoid about being followed, but it’s only because I actually _am_ being pursued. I keep forgetting that it’s only Mycroft’s minions, and despite the fact they’re far too obtuse to be a threat, I still can’t relax.’

  
And where should he start, answering John’s questions about what he’s done, where he’s been?

  
‘Say, Sherlock, did you have a _good_ murderous crusade?’

  
‘Of course John, is there any other kind?’

  
‘So it was a successful suicide mission then?’

  
‘Not really; I survived.’

  
Yes, that conversation would go down nicely, he can see it now.

  
_Delete_.

  
~

  
“I’m here for you, I’m in your corner,” John reminds, ineffectually reassuring him.

  
“Okay,” says Sherlock; “Okay.”

  
Because what else is there to say?

  
~

  
The Sherlock John had known wasn’t a killer, that man was dead and buried, and the Sherlock who has returned is too tainted to fit that role.

  
He can no longer be the man John Watson wants him to be.

  
This man has been too hardened to respond playfully, too broken to have that mischievous twinkle in his eye, too tired for dramatic flourishes, too serious to play games, and too old to be juvenile.

  
He wouldn’t say that he’d been innocent before, maybe never in his life, but he was certainly less so now.

  
That tended to happen when one committed uncountable atrocities.

  
He found that the changes in him, the characteristics of this _new_ Sherlock were less evident as far as working cases were concerned. Blood, gore, and death being a macabre sort of comfort zone, some sliver of continuity in his uprooted life, these were the things he knew.

  
But in the quieter, domestic moments it was far more noticeable, He was a man of fewer extremes, he actually _appreciated_ having the right to do nothing, it still didn’t sit well with him, being unoccupied, but now he simply felt blank and somewhat without purpose, rather than fidgety, manic and hopelessly _bored_.

  
It pains him to think of his violin, for four of the fingers on his left hand had been severely fractured, and not immediately reset. They still work perfectly for everyday tasks, and he can’t find fault in them, but can they handle the strain of the technique required for a complex sonata?

  
And worse; he’d had both of his shoulders held in agonising stress positions, for days on end until he screamed himself hoarse and passed out.

  
Sometimes just lifting his arms above shoulder height is too much; never mind putting the bow to strings.

  
Can he still rise with the notes to a powerful crescendo? Can he roll, and move fluidly though the glissando without faltering? Do his shoulders have the stamina and the strength to carry him through movement after movement; do his fingers have the dexterity, the speed?

  
Will his body be able to keep time with the notes and the music in his head? Or will he lag behind and lose them, the melody becoming disjointed as he fails to keep up and they fade into the distance; unreachable, gone forever?

  
He has no idea if he will ever play to the same level again. Maybe he won’t even be able to hold the instrument in position long enough to play a single piece.

  
He’s not sure he wants to know the answers to these questions, he’s reluctant to find out.

  
He doesn’t want John to hear him struggling painfully through pieces a child could play, fumbling over the basics like an _amateur_ , that ability fading away.

  
He doesn’t want John to be subjected to Sherlock being _sub-par_ ; his prowess as a musician descending into the depths of inadequacy.

  
God forbid John witness Sherlock dropping the violin with a cry, as his shoulder betrays him and gives out; witness just how broken he truly is.

  
Sherlock’s not sure what the loss would do to him, perhaps he’d break irreparably.

  
He _needs_ his violin, he’s kept it safe, looked after it, treasured it, even in the more desperate moments of his past, when he’d sold all his other worldly possessions to inject the money into his veins.

  
The instrument is valuable to him above all monetary price, and he’d felt its absence like a phantom limb when he’d been away; the strings firm and taught, the smell of rosin, the cool varnish of the wood, his fingers dancing along the fret board, curling around the frog, the glide of the bow.

  
It was one of the only outlets for stress that he had in his possession, only healthy one anyway, the one activity that helped him _not_ to think, to turn it off.

  
Sherlock uses his music as creative and emotional expression, and without it, he’s not sure that he knows how.

  
Years of practice and careful culmination of talent, could both literally and figuratively, be slipping through his fingers.

  
He feels like he will burst, and he wonders what it will look like when he does; will he cry?

  
Will he self-destruct and spiral out of control?

  
Will he physically explode under all the pressure compressing him?

Will he snap violently and spontaneously, blowing his own brains out after just one split second of decision, just to get it over with?

  
Or will he sit on the sofa for weeks until he wastes away; staring blankly, mind palace leveled, the husk of the man he had once been, just an empty shell.

  
He finds a sort of morbid curiosity in his detached assessments; it will be interesting to see what will happen, exactly how he will fall apart, what form his inevitable demise will take.

  
But…it will probably not be interesting for John. John will suffer, and John Watson does not deserve to suffer, not one tiny bit more, especially not by his hand.

  
It’s a sobering thought, and it forces him to drag himself back from the abyss.

  
He’s not _necessarily_ going to rupture, there’s always a chance that he _won’t_ shatter, crack up, go to pieces; it’s not a forgone conclusion, he may not break at all.

  
Like John said, this episode will pass, and perhaps the rest of it will wind itself down too, with time.

It’s unlikely, but technically possible.

  
The problem is, that he’s not sure he has much time _left_ in which to heal, in fact he may be well into the negative at this point.

  
He should have died a long time ago.

  
Time is relative, but his is borrowed, 754 days overdue.

  
Does resurrection clear his slate, and right the hour-glass?

  
He doesn’t _feel_ reanimated, he doesn’t _feel_ liberated. He’s not absolved, he’s not _good_ ; he’s not even one hundred percent sure he’s actually alive.

  
He is so very tired.

  
Sherlock’s not sure how he feels about John’s arm around his waist either; it’s too hard to shake off this fugue of apathy.

  
He’s not sure about a lot of things anymore, his footing’s unstable.

  
He doesn’t try to move because he can’t, all he can do is be pinned in place by the downward current, batted about like an insect by the tide, and removed from play, swept to the cold sea bed; suspended, silenced, smothered, as the waves roll and crash violently overhead.

  
It would be almost peaceful, if he wasn’t about to have his lungs deflated, his eyeballs burst and his chest caved in, immobilised and helpless to stop it.

  
The disinterest is suddenly gone and in its place the emotional crash is staggering, his chest heaves and his eyes sting, because he’s so.damn. _tired_.

  
And he doesn’t think he can sustain this for one more second, now he can’t help _but_ react.

  
He has John’s full attention, despite not having actually made a sound, like John can see it coming, that the flood gates are about to burst.

  
He’s too busy concentrating on nothing to reply.

  
He squeezes his eyes shut and presses his lips together in an attempt to quash it down, and he is _not_ thinking about it; not Amsterdam, not Zurich, not Ciudad Juarez, or Grozny, he’s not thinking about Kiev, Istanbul, Phnom Pehn, or Tbilisi, not Gyumri, New Delhi, Seuol, Johannesburg or Kuta. And he is definitely, _definitely_ not thinking about Mitrovica.

  
He’s hyperventilating, and against his will a noise escapes him; high pitched and urgent.

  
_For god’s sake help, it’s crushing me!_

 _  
_ There’s a hand rubbing soothing circles on his back, and he fleetingly wonders when he came to be in a sitting position, and if John notices that the skin he’s touching beneath his shirt isn’t entirely smooth anymore, before he pushes the thought away.

 _  
_ John doesn’t know what it is that ails him, he _wants_ to know, actually gives a damn, but Sherlock can’t tell him because he can’t think about it.

  
Here in the confines of 221B it’s not real, it didn’t happen here, it was in another life, a world away, and he doesn’t want to let it gain a foothold here, he’s safe here, he doesn’t want to poison his home.

  
Has it happened already though? The moment he returned? The atmosphere of the flat is distinctly less relaxed than it might have been, a few years ago. Was that his doing?

  
Of course it was.

  
He looks at John from very far away, and he’s shrinking into himself, he feels so small.

  
His breathing shudders and his chest heaves, struggling for breath; he is trembling uncontrollably.

  
It is entirely possible that he’s going into shock. Is this it then? Is this how Sherlock Holmes falls apart?

  
He’s disintegrating before John’s very eyes, and he’s too tired to catch himself, one second he was numb and drifting, the next someone turned the volume up and took the world off pause, the sea is angry, and it’s kicking up a storm.

  
The hand on Sherlock’s hip grips tighter, the almost-bruising force designed to pull him into the present, and another hand reaches for the back of his neck, guiding him to John.

  
Sherlock forces his nose under the hinge of John’s jaw, fisting his t-shirt, his head is full of the roaring ocean and he cannot think, so he clings to John as the waves churn and threaten to hurl him against the rocks.

  
There are tears leaking from the corners of his eyes, into his hairline, and beneath John’s collar. But John just keeps smoothing his hands over Sherlock’s t-shirt in repetitive circles, and pretends not to notice.

  
The hysterical part is over quickly, like a squall of rain in a storm, and he’s wasted; depleted.

  
He’s so tired he’s starting to question if that really did just happen, or where it had come from. Now it’s over it seems like he’d imagined it. Perhaps it will stay in the plausible deniability of the world between waking and sleep, shrouded in darkness.

  
He lets John hold onto him, as his mind disconnects again and he just exists without processing, nothing exists but his immediate surroundings and how nicely the back of Sherlock’s skull fits into John’s steady palm.

 

 

He surfaces from his malaise, to find that John is still here. John's touch centers him.

  
He no longer has to be on his guard; John is his sentry, his look-out, his protection. John is the lighthouse, guiding him in to the shore.

  
The pressure eases, and the weight of everything he is _not_ thinking about feels significantly lighter; a reprieve.

  
John is here, and for now, Sherlock can breathe again.

 

 


End file.
